The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, the latest in the GeForce 8 Series of graphics processing units, is hitting store shelves today.

Developed to answer enthusiast gamers' demand for high-performing graphics at the $199 to $259 price point, GeForce 8800 GT promises to offers a robust gaming experience for the latest next-generation DirectX 10 games, such as Crysis, Hellgate: London, and Gears of War, as well as full support for current DirectX 9 games.

"When we introduced the GeForce 8 Series family, our most savvy customers and press demanded a product with 64 stream processors and a 256-bit memory interface to deliver more performance at the popular $199 to $259 price point. Today we decided to raise the bar and deliver GeForce 8800 GT with 112 stream processors, a fast 256-bit memory interface, and our second-generation PureVideo HD technology, giving our customers an incredible value proposition," said Ujesh Desai, general manager of GeForce desktop GPUs at Nvidia.

In addition to 112 stream processors -- each individually clocked at 1.5GHz -- and a 256-bit memory interface running at 900MHz, the GeForce 8800 GT is designed for the new PCI Express 2.0 bus standard and is backwards compatible with the original PCI Express standard. The GPU speed is set at 600MHz.

The GeForce 8800 GT also leverages Nvidia's second-generation video processing engine to deliver playback of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies on everyday PCs. The new programmable video processing engine takes on all of the high definition H.264 video decoding, freeing the CPU to perform other tasks and significantly reducing power consumption, heat, and noise.

GeForce 8800 GT-based graphics cards are available now from add-in card manufacturers, retailers, and system builders.